Kirstin Halliday - Desert Grassland Whiptail Lizards

Residencies - 27 October to 1 November 2025, 12 January - 17 January 2026

Kirstin Halliday and Aniela Piasecka will be developing the next acts of their work Desert Grassland Whiptail Lizards. 

The desert grassland whiptail lizard is an all-female species that lives in the deserts of New Mexico. Notably, they reproduce without fertilisation, but still stimulate each other to bring on ovulation. Near the laying period, one lizard will mount another. This has earned the species the reputation of “lesbian lizards.”

Dance artist Kirstin Halliday’s Desert Grassland Whiptail Lizards is dance-drama, that reimagines this species as an all-lesbian fantasy world.

Co-choreographed by Aniela Piasecka and combining absurdist choreography with documentary-style storytelling, Desert Grassland Whiptail Lizards will culminate in a body of work exploring the fetishization of lesbians and the active reconfiguration of the cisheteronormative male gaze.

Photo - Still Motion Arts